Ma Ying-jeou

Ma Ying-jeou (13 July 1950-) was the President of Taiwan from 20 May 2008, succeeding Chen Shui-bian and preceding Tsai Ing-wen. Previously the Minister of Justice from 1993 to 1996 and Mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006, he was a seasoned politician before being elected President of Taiwan.

Biography
Ma Ying-jeou was born on 13 July 1950 in Kowloon, Hong Kong, United Kingdom to a family of Catholic Hakka Chinese. His family was not from Hong Kong, but instead descendants of the legendary Three Kingdoms general Ma Chao and refugees from the Chinese Civil War who sought to escape Hunan for Taiwan. In 1972, Ma Ying-jeou received his Bachelor of Laws degree from National Taiwan University before pursuing studies in the United States, and he worked on Wall Street for many years before returning to Taiwan. There, he settled down and had a family, marrying Christine Chow; another member of his family was his nephew Gene Yu, who was a Green Berets officer in the USA. From 1984 to 1988, Ma served as Deputy Secretary-General of the Kuomintang party, and from 1993 to 1996 he served as Minister of Justice under President Lee Teng-hui. In 1998, he was elected as Mayor of Taipei, and he had to deal with issues such as health insurance rates, water supply issues, and the outbreak of the SARS virus, and he was accused of corruption on some occasions. On 20 May 2008, he was elected President of Taiwan, succeeding Chen Shui-bian.

As President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou inherited the troubles of the country. While he said that the people of Taiwan could decide if they wanted formal independence from the People's Republic of China, he said that reunification was the ultimate goal. Later, he stated that he supported the status quo, and he wanted to create close relations with the mainland communist China. As a result of his pro-mainland views, Ma was the enemy of the Sunflower Student Movement in 2014, with 14,000+ protesters rioting against his views on being a friend of the mainland. The book Formosa Betrayed (about the February 28 Incident, when the Kuomintang executed as many as 4,000 people to put down an uprising by dissidents) was thrown at Ma by one student, although it did not injure him. On 16 January 2016, Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the new President of Taiwan, leaving Ma Ying-jeou until 10 May to remain in office. On 28 January 2016, against his pro-reconciliation views, he visited Taiping Island in a move seen as provocative by China and other countries involved in the disputes over the uninhabited South China Sea islands.